


Manifest Content

by FeelingCreature



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Gen, brief and silly mention of nightmares, gooey cuddle fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 19:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3393209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeelingCreature/pseuds/FeelingCreature
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crow has a bad dream and interrupts Joel's not-bad dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manifest Content

**Author's Note:**

> I really like bot snuggling. Like, a lot. Thoughts of space robot family cuddles sustain me. So here's a silly thing I wrote about it. 
> 
> (Manifest content, by the way, is the literal things that appear or take place in a dream, as opposed to latent content, which is the underlying meaning or symbolism of the dream, of which there is absolutely none in either dream mentioned in this fic. In fact, manifest content doesn't really have much to do with this story, either, but I needed a title, so...)

“Joel?”

Joel found himself being poked into consciousness. By small golden claws, based on the voice. Otherwise it would have been small pecks from a tiny silver beak, and it would have been much closer to his ear.

He’d been dreaming about something. He tried to remember, since it had been a pleasant one, and he liked to hold onto those for later. It had involved something about a platypus and Cissy from Family Affair, and eating custard at a diner, although none of them had seemed connected in any particular way. Hm. No, any meaning had slipped away with his sleep. Oh well.

“Joel?”

He felt his shoulder shake again, and remembered why he’d woken up in the first place. He opened his eyes. Crow stood there at the side of the bed, and though Joel couldn’t see his face very well in the darkness, he could tell it looked worried. Joel propped himself up on one elbow.

“What’s the matter, Crow?” he asked, voice raspy from sleep. He cleared his throat. “Everything okay?”

Crow looked down at the bed. “Um, yeah…well, everything’s fine, but…well, I…” He began fiddling with edge of the blanket. “I, uh, had a bad dream.”

“Ah.” Joel nodded in comprehension. “A scary one?”

“Well, I wasn’t scared, it’s just…well, the cabinet in the corner kind of looks like a giant pig in the dark, and that’s what was in my dream, so it feels weird to be in there with it… being like that…” Crow trailed off.

“Right, right.” Joel answered, nodding again, and stifling a yawn.

“So…I was wondering if maybe I could sleep in here with you,” Crow finished, still poking at the comforter.

Joel’s half-asleep brain processed the request for a moment. “Yeah, sure,” he said, lifting up the covers to let Crow in. “You know, it’s okay to be scared, though.”

“Okay, well, maybe I was a little scared.” Crow admitted, as he climbed onto the bed and curled into a spindly ball at Joel’s side. Joel put his arm around his little bot and laid his head back against the pillow, only to get jabbed in the temple by the tip of Crow’s net. He reached over and detached it from Crow’s eye dish, and laid it on the bedside table.

“Heh, yeah, you probably don’t want to poke your eye out in your sleep. Bloodstains are hard to get out,” Crow said.

      Joel chuckled and laid back down. Crow nestled closer to him.

“So,” Joel asked “you dreamed about a giant pig?”

“Yeah,” Crow said sheepishly. “With an axe.”

“Hm. I guess no more watching Porky Pig cartoons and reading Conan the Barbarian comics right before bed, huh?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“You should try dreaming about a platypus instead,” Joel said, closing his eyes.

“Huh?” Crow asked.

“Hm. I don’t know,” Joel said, feeling himself losing his battle against unconsciousness. “Goodnight, Crow.”

“Goodnight, Joel.”

Satisfied with that exchange for now, Joel rolled over and fell asleep.


End file.
